Gov. Tom Corbett and other top Pennsylvania officials filed motions to dismiss or postpone the NCAA’s lawsuit against them in court documents filed Thursday.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association filed the complaint against Corbett and others in February in response to the legislation to alter the consent decree and keep the Penn State sanction money in the commonwealth.
The motion to dismiss asks the court to dismiss it “for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on the grounds that this court should abstain.”
If not dismissed, the documents ask the lawsuit to be postponed because of the pending proceedings of two separate and related lawsuits against the NCAA. One of those lawsuits is Corbett’s civil suit against the NCAA to overturn the sanctions, and the other is Sen. Jake Corman’s, R-Centre, suit against the NCAA to keep the $60 million fine in the commonwealth. Both lawsuits were filed in early January.
In one set of court documents, Corbett filed the motion to dismiss the NCAA’s lawsuit along with Mark Zimmer, chairman of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.
In separate documents, State Treasurer Rob McCord filed his own motion to dismiss for similar reasons. McCord additionally said that the dismissal is “in the interest of judicial economy, the avoidance of duplicative and piecemeal litigation, and comity,” according to court documents.
Eugene DePasquale, auditor general of Pennsylvania, also filed a separate motion to dismiss for the same reasons as Corbett and Zimmer.
Thomas Scott, of Killian & Gephart, LLP, is an attorney for the NCAA and filed the complaint against the state on Feb. 20.
Scott said there will be a response from the NCAA to the motions to dismiss. The response should be filed within the next two weeks, he said. Scott would not disclose how the NCAA intends to respond to the motions.
James Schultz, general counsel for Gov. Corbett, could not be reached by press time Thursday.
